Almost half the world – over three billion people – live on less than $2.50 a day. And at least 80 percent of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.*

I first heard these statistics as I was listening to a Francis Chan message. I don’t even remember what the message was about, but I do remember how much these statistics impacted my thinking. For a month I have been mulling these figures over in my head.

As a direct result of this message our family decided to take on the challenge of living on only $2.50 a day for an entire week. We decided to rely on God for every need that surpassed the $2.50 a day.

I did not go out and stock up before the week began, so we started out with only things left in our cupboard and a few necessary staples like milk, eggs, cream, meat, flour, bread and some cheese.

I was so excited to embark on this journey, not only to see how God provided for all of our needs, but also to see in a small part how people around the world live.

In reality we started out so rich, but the challenge definitely took us out of our comfort zone. Looking back, I would not trade this week of sacrifice for anything. We learned so many important lessons in faith, sacrifice and the abundant love and provision of God.

As we entered this week of sacrifice, we weren’t sure what to expect or how God would provide, but we quickly saw the provision of God on a daily basis.

The week of our sacrifice we received a fruit tray, coffee creamer, a rotisserie chicken, cookies, coffee, two dozen eggs (from two different people), a five-gallon bucket of potatoes, Brazil quesadillas, yeast with a recipe for bread, pound cake, chocolate and noodles.

Throughout this week of financial sacrifice only one person who gave to us knew that we were doing this challenge. Everyone else gave as God laid it on their hearts.

A sweet lady in our community woke up one morning with our family on her heart. She thought it was strange that God would have her make us a cake out of the blue.

The next morning she still felt led to do something for us and couldn’t dismiss it from her mind, so she baked us a cake.

This lady normally reads my blog but had been so caught up that she hadn’t been able to read the blog for a couple of days. When she got around to reading the blog, she realized why God had put our family on her heart.

I was more than amazed at how God uses His people to bless us in our time of need.

It was neat to see our children so excited about God’s provision.

Every day they anticipated what God would bring us. As a mom that is one of the biggest desires I have for my children, to every day see the hand of God at work in our lives.

Sometimes we have to get out of our comfort zones to see more of who God is and what He can do.

One of the reasons I chose this challenge for our family at this time was because of an offering. Our church was getting ready to take up an offering to start an expansion project.

I wanted to use all the money we had left over from this challenge to go toward this special offering.

I read the verse Malachi 3:10,

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”

This verse came true for us that week. We brought to Him our whole week of income and He poured out His blessings upon us until they overflowed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Valerie Hopkins is a pastor’s wife located in a small town of Virginia. She loves serving the Lord and seeing Him do the impossible. Valerie also enjoys blogging, going on missions trips, teaching Bible studies, and being a wife and mom!

Thank you so much for this blog post. It was very uplifting. I am going to also try to take on a similar challenge/sacrifice. Unfortunately due to current gas prices I know I won’t be able to stay under 2.50 a day but I will definitely make cuts in every other area.